"Rent Responsibly"

So no one really knows who VHS Head is. And as with these maybe/maybe-not "disguised" artists, half the fun of listening is trying to figure out whose giant green head is floating behind the curtain. We know VHS Head hails from Blackpool, his debut EP Video Club just dropped on the Manchester-based electronic label Skam, and that Club's "Rent Responsibly"-- an Art of Noise-inspired chunk of chop-and-splice funhouse funk-- is ostensibly more engaging than the discussion surrounding the identity of it's creator. Apparently using "video tape as the primary sound source" from a "vast amount of ex-rental videos" (says a blurb over at recordstore.co.uk), VHS Head is able to pick from a platter of archival noises and vocal samples that, on "Rent Responsibly", run in range from a sort of gooey familiarity (plush keyboard arpeggios, tubular bass noodling) to stuff that sounds dredged from some weird mechanical nightmare (industrial-hard plinks and plunks, creeped-out sci-fi synth tones). There's even a neat little narrative that appears, as the locked-in groove finally short-circuits under the weight of all that clanking and whirring, played like the final mad charge of a very paranoid android. It might be a little surprising to learn that current speculation revolves around VHS Head actually being a pseudonym-cloaked member of Boards of Canada, so a few more listens might be in order here. Please be kind, rewind.